On the Eleventh Day of Christmas...

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas I saw on DVD… The Tick Loves Santa!

I absolutely love the Tick, both the comic and the cartoon from the mid 90’s. (The live action show wasn’t bad either.) The Tick is a super strong “nigh-invulnerable” powerhouse that is both dimwitted and fairly delusional. He’s like a big dumb kid with super powers. Along with his straight-laced and anxious sidekick Arthur, who flies about in a moth costume, the Tick fights all sorts of weird and ridiculous supervillains.

 So “The Tick Loves Santa” begins with a criminal running from the cops. He disguises himself as Santa Claus, but fails to fool the police. When the criminal runs across the Tick and Arthur, the Tick is enamored at meeting the jolly fat man. In a final desperate attempt at a getaway, the criminal leaps off a building only to crash into a giant neon sign. Landing square on the letter M, the fake Santa is apparently electrocuted, horrifying the Tick who now believes that Santa Claus is dead.

But the fake Santa didn’t die. He awoke to discover the electric shock gave him the power to create duplicates of himself that obey his commands. Taking the name “Multiple Santa,” he creates an army of evil Santa duplicates to commit a huge crime spree.

While Tick and Arthur are out caroling with other superheroes, they find the Multiple Santa army commiting crimes. The sheer number of Santas overwhelm the heroes and to make matters worse, the most powerful among them won’t help defeat them. For you see, the Tick could never hurt Santa!

In the best part of the episode, the Tick and Arthur meet the real Santa Claus. This encounter has one of the greatest quotes to ever come from The Tick cartoon. As the Tick is seated on Santa’s lap, crushing him slightly, Santa tells him “Tick, I love you like a son. You’ve kept the faith longer than any sane adult could.” That line alone epitomizes the very essence of the Tick’s character. He lives in a happy little world of absolute good and if anything should interfere with that good, it must be stopped!

I definitely recommend checking out this episode and hell, the entire cartoon series of The Tick. It pains me to know how many geeks have never even heard of the character, his comic or the television shows. The Tick helped pave the way for other super hero genre parodies like the Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law and the Venture Brothers (Christopher McCulloch was the storyboard artist on The Tick and even wrote 6 episodes). I just wish someone would have released the ENTIRE series onto DVD; Seasons 1 and 2 each had an episode omitted for some reason and season 3 was never released. (I had to buy mine in a *ahem* less official capacity.)

On the Merry Meter I give “The Tick Loves Santa” 9 out of 10

Tune in tomorrow as we wrap up this experiment in time consumption and merriment with a "super" Christmas episode.